AI War 2 v0.809 Released! “Divide By Human”

The title of this one is a programmer-y joke at the expense of us human meatbags. But I think it’s also a pretty apt description of some of the new AI behaviors in terms of how it decides to take major actions at a planet. Sometimes bumrush you, sometimes go away for a while and come back, etc. This is a lot more in line with how the first game handled pieces of its AI at the mid-management tier, so to speak. Big thanks to Badger for adding this.

There are a variety of other tweaks and fixes in here, including some changes to Risk Analyzers and Wormhole Invasions. You’ll also start seeing reconquest waves on all difficulties.

I’ve gotten almost all the end of year finance stuff done now, finally, and in general am feeling better in my personal life despite things continually falling apart in various new ways each week it feels like. I’m getting fewer and fewer unpleasant giant surprises, so my confidence in my ability to keep my butt in the chair and focus on work-work rather than finances-work and outside-life-things-that-require-too-much-new-learning-work is rising. I’m still not where I want to be yet on that score, but I’m rapidly gaining, finally. I’m starting to feel more like myself again.

Amusingly, I took my son to see the new Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie yesterday, and that was ridiculously meaningful of a movie to both of us for very different reasons. I’ve written (in a frustratingly vague way) about how I’ve felt a couple of times over the last months like I’ve flipped between universes that look similar but are actually different, and seeing certain aspects of that on the big screen in an emotionally-loaded animated movie was surprisingly cathartic. That movie is crazy well done and well written. We’ll see if it lasts, but in a strange way since seeing that movie I’ve felt more like myself than I have since my mysterious incident that I’ll explain to you in the future when I can.

As I noted the last two times, rest assured that this won’t be a permanent state of affairs, and I’m not going anywhere. This is hopefully a once-per-lifetime event. Thanks again to everyone for their support and kind words. Continual thanks to Badger, Puffin, and Quinn for holding down the fort while I’m functionally (not literally) handicapped. I’m getting increasingly excited about getting back into things and doing some big things with the game, and that’s the best sign that things are improving.

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you’ll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it’s a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you’ll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn’t have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that’s how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

About Arcen (Ar-ken) Games

Originally known for our unusual and highly effective approach to RTS artificial intelligence in our debut title AI War: Fleet Command, we have since branched out into many other genres and styles of games.

As you can tell by browsing our catalog of titles, our interests are eclectic, and we have a particular affinity for blurring the lines between unlikely genres.